Financing

A Practice Built Around Your Teeth, Not Your Benefit Plan

"The patient always comes first. Our restorative treatments are expertly planned to last for decades."

Slate Dental is a fee-for-service practice. That means your treatment plan is built from what your mouth actually needs — the right material for the tooth, the right sequence, the right amount of time in the chair — rather than from what a benefit schedule happens to reimburse this year.

Most of our patients pay directly and use their dental benefits as reimbursement. We file every claim on your behalf regardless of carrier. We are also in network with Cigna DPPO (Total), so if that is your plan, your contracted rates apply here.

Either way, you get the same care, the same materials, and the same unhurried appointments. And you always know the cost before we begin.

What Things Cost

Very few dental practices publish fees. We do, because the first question most people have is one they feel awkward asking.

Fees current as of August 2026. If foundation work is needed first — a build-up, for example — it is identified and itemized before treatment begins. You receive a written plan listing the exact fee for every appointment. More about your first visit.

Dental Insurance Is a Benefit, Not a Payment Plan

This is the part most people are never told, and it explains almost everything about how dental care gets delivered in this country.

When dental insurance became common in the 1970s, a typical annual maximum — the most your plan will pay in a year — was set somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500. That was a meaningful amount of dentistry at the time. Roughly fifty years later, that number has barely moved. The American Dental Association has stated plainly that annual maximums have not kept pace with inflation or with the rising cost of materials, technology, and care — and in 2024 the ADA adopted formal policy opposing annual and lifetime maximums in dental benefit programs altogether.

For perspective: $1,500 in the early 1970s had the purchasing power of roughly $9,000 to $10,000 today. A benefit that once covered a year of substantial dental work now often covers a single crown and little else.

None of that makes dental insurance worthless. It makes it what it actually is: a partial subsidy toward your care, not a plan that pays for it. We think you should know that going in, because the alternative is finding out in the middle of treatment.

What it means in practice is that we do not let a benefit schedule decide your dentistry. We plan the case your teeth actually need, tell you exactly what it costs, apply whatever benefit you have, and offer financing for the difference when that helps. The harder right over the easier wrong — including in how we talk about money.

Flexible Finance Solutions

We believe exceptional dental care should be accessible. Our financing partners offer flexible payment solutions that allow you to receive the treatment you need when you need it.